In Arthdal, there was a hidden prophecy from long ago. The prophecy said three children who each symbolize sword, bell and mirror will be born at the same time and bring this world to an end. The children of the prophecy were Eunseom, Tanya and Saya.

ARTHDAL CHRONICLES: THE SWORD OF ARAMUN (2023)

LEE JOON GI AS EUNSEOM E01 : ARTHDAL CHRONICLES : THE SWORD OF ARAMUN 아라문의 검 (2023)

A God does not fall.

ARTHDAL CHRONICLES 아스달 연대기 (2019–2023) — s2.e02 | war of twins

13 minutes into arthdal chronicles 2 and lee joongki's got me. yeah he's got me good

So, let me get this straight… the Ago tribe needs pure iron to make swords strong enough to go against Arthdal, and they do not know how to purify it -

But instead of giving us… idk a heist to get the technique, or have someone try and try again until they finally, triumphantly, gets it right just in time for war, they have someone suddenly tell them that “oh there’s a giant pure iron meteorite at the bottom of a lake nearby” like… talk about anticlimactic.

Have I missed something? Cause I feel like that meteorite came out of nowhere.

HYPED for new arthdal.........will yangcha be in season 2 tho

I want to celebrate the end of ARTHDAL CHRONICLES s2 with a little note on Taealha, my favourite female character in all of kdrama so far.

I don't usually love girlbosses, and I normally wouldn't cheer to see one of the main antagonists of a series escape most of the consequences of her actions. But I loved this for Taealha, and I've been thinking hard about why this is.

What I think it boils down to is this: Taealha is an antagonist. But she's not a villain. And this speaks to one of the main themes I'm seeing in Asian dramas.

While an antagonist is any character who opposes the protagonists of a story, a villain is a character who is outright evil. Unusually for a character who's pitted against very idealistic heroes, Taealha isn't a villain, even though she helps to rule and uphold a desperately evil society. The show's morality is more white-and-grey than black-and-grey, in the manner of most Western grimdark fantasy. I think that Asian drama generally views systemic change through a different lens than Western drama. In Asian drama, it is the rare heroic characters - like Tanya and Eunseom - who have the courage and vision to imagine a world that is any better than the one they inhabit. While Western storytelling sees injustice often as the action of an individual villain, Eastern storytelling sees injustice as the grinding of an impersonal social machine in which those who prop up the status quo are often as helplessly imprisoned within the system as those they rule over. Their fault may not be active malice, so much as the lack of vision, courage, and selfless compassion to fight for a better world.

I think this also has something to do with why so many people in the West have trouble with the concept of systemic injustice - they think that evil in society must be the work of a few bad actors, a few individual villains, rather than of a whole social order. I also note that in Eastern drama, especially in the shows which are more conscious of social justice (like SCARLET HEART RYEO and ARTHDAL CHRONICLES), the "villain" - insofar as there is one to pit against the idealistic heroes - is society at large. In many western dramas, on the other hand, it's clear the writers desperately want to believe that society at large is good; that collective action is only ever a force for justice and never for evil.

Despite being an antagonist opposing idealistic heroes, Taealha is able to be sympathetically portrayed because she, like everyone else, is caught between the gears of a cruel society. She may be rich, beautiful, deadly, and the heiress to a great lord, but in all her privilege she, too, is subject to the machinations of her father, of the king, and of Tagon, the man she loves. She is also not the only source of evil in the show - which makes it very, very clear that the evil in Arthdal stems from every ordinary citizen who profits from slavery and engages in war. Taealha opposes Eunseom and Tanya, but she does not do so out of a desire to cause or profit from suffering. Rather, Taealha is a pragmatist whose lack of faith in the gods leads her to seek survival by working with the system rather than destroying it according to the divine will. What makes her sympathetic is that her motivation is always to protect the people she loves: Tagon and, later, Arok. In protecting her loved ones, Taealha only wants the same thing as Tanya and Eunseom - but because she has no faith in something greater than either herself or society, she chooses not to try to change the system, but to beat the system at its own game. If she's cruel, it's only because she's trapped in a cruel system; she's still doing her best.

Taealha is no worse than anyone else in the show. She simply fails to be better - and that's a big part of why we can still love her and cheer her on, even though she's one of the main antagonists.

That scene of Yangcha blocking Tanya's ears, to shut down the thoughts she was being bombarded with, was lovely.

Sword, Bell, and Mirror. One day, in the year of singing wolf, Sword, Bell, and Mirror appeared in the world together. Before Sword comes, break Bell and Mirror. Break Mirror first. The day when Mirror reflects Sword will be the end of your world.

ARTHDAL CHRONICLES : THE SWORD OF ARAMUN 아라문의 검 (2023)

In this long battle, only you, Tanya, have won. You saved Arthdal. Thank you, Tanya.

ARTHDAL CHRONICLES 아스달 연대기 (2019–2023) — s2.e02 | war of twins

arthdal chronicles 2 switching out two out of four of the main cast is something i'm feeling a little iffy about, but knowing they kept the original writers is at least making me feel more hopeful

I admit I was a bit worried about the main leads being switched out for this season, but both Lee Joon-gi and Shin Se-kyung are doing an excellent job 👏🏻👏🏻

I don't understand the logic that after all these years, Tanya is still madly in love with Eunseom and he with her. At this point, it's a memory they love. Not the people they are today. The worst part is that as soon as they meet, they kiss ? I remind you that they hadn't even taken this kind of step in their relationship when they broke up. They don't even know what they are like today. Also, you have to explain to me why Tanya would be so cold towards Saya ? Towards the end of season 1, she and Saya had become closer and sympathetic despite the problems in their basic relationship. At this point, I wasn't necessarily asking for romance, but at least friendship. On screen, she spent much more time with Saya than Eunseom. That she grew up with Eunsom is not what should make the relationship more important because on screen it is not the one we saw. All this to say that he's tired of childhood friends... Also, Saya dying is a fucking joke... I've been waiting for this season 2 for years and I won't even watch it after everything I've seen on it. Oh. And Tanya's actress is a disaster.